


A Lifetime of Adventure Or Vice Versa

by leiascully



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Professor John Smith doesn't know quite what to do when the famous adventurer River Song turns up in his history lecture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lifetime of Adventure Or Vice Versa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kerjen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerjen/gifts).



"The trouble is," Doctor John Smith said, leaning forward, "the trouble is that all these...adventurers think that they're so deuced clever. As if they could have surmised the existence of the Temple of Ea or the battlefields at Korlé on their own. If it weren't for us, they'd just stumble through the wilderness until they fell into a ditch." He said "adventurers" as if it were a shameful word, a filthy word. They sold their knowledge, hired themselves out in much the same way as the poor souls in the district where Doctor Smith never set foot. They made discovery seem tawdry, the stuff of cheap serialized sensational novels. He loathed them.

The other professors all grunted in agreement. Smith's lament was a common refrain in the halls of the Safari Club, at least while the adventurers were away. When the adventurers were in town, none of the professors could get a word in edgewise. It was all, "Well, old chap, that's all fine and dandy, but out in the jungle, there's absolutely no way…" and "You know, I've been to the pyramid. Not nearly as big as you might think it was. I remember there was a little tavern…" and "My favorite time was when I met the Queen of Estoria - you remember her, don't you? - Anyway…" The worst of it was that they were always campaigning to have the lady adventuresses let in, or a few of them were. Smith had nothing against women, of course, in general anyway, but it was a gentleman's club. A man could hardly relax in the company of adventuresses, some of whom wore trousers and had been known to smoke cigars and swear. A gentleman's club was no place for that. Neither was a university, for that matter, which reminded him of a fresh injustice. 

"They're even forcing me to admit some of these madmen into my course!" Smith exclaimed. "It's going to be a shambles." 

"Terrible, terrible," muttered the other professors, sunk into their armchairs behind their newspapers with their brandies and their cigars. The boy came in and rang the bell for quiet hours and Doctor Smith subsided, sulking in his own armchair, hardly even paying attention to the latest article. It was another story about another adventurer, someone called River Song, who, according to the photograph, was nothing but a smirk under a fedora pulled low over his eyes. Smith snorted to himself, earning a glare from one of his colleagues. These photographers apparently thought they were artists now - it was sensationalism, just like the article. Why not show the face of this River Song, at very least? Why not show the gentleman himself? A man ought to make his measure known. All mischief and no matter, he called it. The reporter had written quite the story to go along with it: nothing properly cited or referenced, all the focus on the perilously chilly slopes of the mountain and none on the historical significance of the relics that had been discovered there.

There was just no decency in the press anymore, Smith decided, and no scholarship. At least he had his dignity, writing about discoveries in the civilized calm of his office, far from the mud and sleet and biting insects. Adventuring was no work for a man of intellect.

The name River Song sounded slightly familiar, though. He was certain he'd heard it somewhere before. Probably in another of these newspapers, he thought, which he read only to keep current on the smears perpetrated on the good name of his hallowed profession. He motioned for another hot milk and turned the page of his newspaper, folding back the photograph of River Song with particular care. He wanted to make certain he didn't see that all-too-knowing smirk another second. 

\+ + + + 

Doctor Smith looked around, scowling. It was the first day of the term. He had been strongly encouraged - at potential risk of furlough, as he came to understand - to accept a few verifiable adventurers into his class. He was accustomed to adult students, given the level of interest in his subject, but they were generally enthusiastic amateurs with no real ambitions toward actual exploration. At least the ridiculous stories in the newspapers were good for something - he'd found a few useful research assistants, the sort who worked weekends and never wanted paying. Enrolling actual adventurers was a much different kettle of fish, however. 

In particular, he was irked about River Song. She was the only one who had nearly as much experience in the field as he had, which meant she was much less likely to be controlled by his pointed corrections and legendary attention to detail. He'd had a memo about her, and how he was to give her special dispensation, given her uncanny aptitude for finding sites and artifacts. She might disappear _in medias_ semester, he'd been told, off to whatever corner of the globe caught her fancy. This was frustrating for a number of reasons; to wit, she was a woman, first of all, and therefore probably out to flummox him at every turn, as many of them seemed to be, and second of all, the very idea that he might allow anyone to miss his lectures on a whim and still receive any kind of credit was simply outrageous. 

He'd done some reading in the past weeks about River Song. She sounded like a complete terror, and the worst of it was, she wasn't even lacking in womanly graces. Aside from tramping through all the undiscovered places of the world, of course. He'd heard several accounts of her behavior at parties, her elegance and her perfect comportment, which usually lasted until someone vexed her. At that point, she generally responded with a cutting remark, in the best case, or in the face of one particularly egregious financial backer, the point of her heel strategically positioned on his instep and the outline of her Beretta pistol visible through her evening bag. 

All of that he might have let pass, even admired under certain circumstances, but to be as successful in the field as she was in addition to the rest seemed to cross a line. She had as many finds to her name as any of the greatest adventurers. By all accounts, her instincts were astounding, her determination unparalleled. Doctor Smith expected she was the sort who might stand up in the middle of his lecture (or worse, not stand up at all, just lift one finger and drawl something like, "Actually, Professor, if you'd been in the field, you'd know…"). That, he could not abide. Just because he hadn't personally slogged through the mud to reach every artifact he'd written about didn't mean that his scholarship was any less thorough than anyone else's.

He scanned the crowd of students for River Song, realizing as he did that he'd only seen the one photograph of her: the fedora and the smirk. Why these photographers couldn't create a decent, recognizable portrait was beyond him. Full of themselves, he called it. But there was nobody who resembled her (for one thing, everyone was sitting politely in their chairs, looking prepared and expectant). That stood to reason. She probably wouldn't turn up at all, and he would be left in peace to deliver his lectures.

Smith heard the bells chime in the church tower, which meant it was ten a.m. and time to start his lecture. He opened his mouth to introduce himself, as if his students didn't know who he was, but heard a buzzing outside. He paused and then started to speak, but the buzzing grew louder, and he was losing his students' attention. Several glanced out the window. He resolutely began again and stopped again. Heads were turning now, drawn to the windows, and he couldn't shout over the buzzing, which was even louder now, recognizable as the noise of an engine. 

His students turned to him, their eyes wide, and Smith waved his hand irritably, dismissing them to the windows. There wasn't any reason for there to be the sound of an engine outside. Probably someone testing some new and irresponsible vehicle. He tapped his fingers on his podium, pretending not to be the least bit interested in any extra-cameral activities, but all the same, he was vexed. Some upstart horsing about on the green and all his students driven to distraction! 

"A plane!" some of the students were saying. "A plane!" And now, dash it all, when he might have liked to see this daring pilot, the engines cut out (landed, he hoped) and the students were five deep around the windows. He was certainly never going to get close enough to see and still keep his dignity. He craned his head, pretending to examine something on his desk, and caught a glimpse of wide yellow double wings. Unfair, he called it - he was positively itching for a ride in a plane, and here was a plane, and he had a class to teach, if it was even possible to guide them back to the lofty pursuits of academia. 

Doctor Smith cleared his throat. There was some buzz among the students - about the pilot, he thought, but it was all murmurs. He cleared his throat again, and opened his mouth to call the class to order, but just then the door burst open. A woman strode in, clad in jodhpurs and boots and a sleek bomber jacket. A flying helmet swung loosely from her hand and her hair, her hair! It sprang out around her head like a halo. She had every curve he'd ever heard about a woman having and some he assuredly hadn't, although he looked forward to finding out.

"Yowza!" he heard someone say, and then realized, as the students turned to stare, that it had been him.

"Thank you, sweetie," said the pilot, setting her helmet down and stripping off her gloves deliberately. She smirked at him and it was like a promise: he recognized, with a sudden flash of insight, that she was very likely to eat him alive, to consume him whole and to smile while she did it. He shivered, which was odd, because his whole body felt flushed with heat. He touched two fingers to the knot of his tie - he wasn't unmannerly enough to loosen his clothing in public, of course, but the urge was there. Quite a lot of urges were there, several of which he'd never experienced before. Another related flash of heat that made him very glad she was an adult student, and therefore liberated from the usual rules of social engagement. He could ask her for a drink, or for dinner, or for quite a bit more, once they got to know each other and possibly after as short an engagement as propriety would allow (because he did still have his propriety, although he rather hoped she didn't). And then the smirk filtered through to his conscious mind, and he realized he'd seen it before, under the brim of a fedora, in a grainy reproduction of a photograph in a smeary newspaper article, and his stomach dropped.

"River Song, I presume?" he said, advancing toward her, trying to muster up a proper attitude of superior disdain and not quite succeeding. 

"Ah, my reputation precedes me," she said, offering her hand. He bent slightly over her fingers, the way a gentleman ought, but she shook his hand firmly and released it. "And you'll be Doctor Smith. Sorry to park the flivver on the lawn - couldn't find a better place to set it down."

"Er," he said. He wanted to tell her, sternly, that she was late, and that in the future, he wouldn't brook any such nonsense. Instead, what he said was, "We've a quite capable staff of groundskeepers. I'm sure they'll see to it."

"I hope they won't blow their wigs over a few ruffled dahlias," Song said. 

"Surely not," Smith mumbled.

"Well," Song said, "I haven't come all this way for nothing. Shake a leg, Doctor - I'm ready to be a doctor myself. Heap me with laurels. I'm sure they're just the thing to wear on my next expedition." She winked. She turned to glare at the rest of the students, who were milling about. They stared back, filing to their seats, the one who she'd displaced in the front row quietly picking up his books and finding another place. Doctor Smith went back to his podium. He shuffled his notes about for a few moments and then looked up. Everyone was watching him, and River Song most of all, somehow.

"History," Smith began, "is not, as some have mistakenly supposed, a dead subject with no avenues left for exploration, but a vital, living discipline, one that can provide us with the tools to uncover and bring to the light much that we have given up for lost. Nothing is ever really lost, so long as it can be remembered. Consider the tomb of Tutankhamun. Consider Ninevah. Consider the city of Troy. All were considered to have been impossible to find, and yet, we have found them. Consider Machu Picchu - unknown for so long, but not forgotten."

River Song didn't take notes, but he felt her eyes on him the entire time he was speaking.

\+ + + +

It took a splash of brandy in his hot milk to steady Doctor Smith's nerves that night. 

"Impossible woman," he muttered, shaking out his newspaper, not even certain why he was so rattled. She'd been quite polite, all things considered. But she was an explorer, and not to be trusted. Her stated purpose was to cover herself in glory by having all the adventures and writing all the articles as well. Presumptuous, he called it. Unnecessary. The division of labor between explorers (rough, unpolished, mad-as-hatters sorts they were) and professors (civilized, well-read, and articulate enough to convey the importance of a discovery) was well-established and ought not be disturbed. It was the natural order of things. Better not to go turning everything on its head. Explorers were only as good as the coin they were paid. They drank too much, and the language they used, well, it wasn't suitable. They carried weapons around, even in polite company. They tramped through the mud, up hill and down dale, and they brought back all the raw data necessary, but it was the professors who performed the alchemy that turned discoveries into history. The Amina Caves and the Chedworth Villa deserved more than a public house yarn. The lost temples and hidden statues and unearthed treasures merited properly-crafted narratives about their sagas, with references and cross references and careful measurements and detailed illustrations. It wasn't proper to be cavalier with history. It deserved respect.

At least she hadn't come to the club, Smith thought, aware of the seeming non sequitur and also aware that it followed perfectly on his train of thought. That didn't even bear imagining, River Song in the next armchair, swapping tales with rough men and clean ones, perfectly at ease. He sipped at his hot milk and kept his mind firmly on the poorer qualities of explorers, and firmly away from the more intriguing qualities (and physical aspects) of the one who'd fallen out of the sky and into his life.

\+ + + +

Weeks went past. The comfortable haze of the semester and the familiar lectures was disturbed only slightly by River Song's presence, which discomfited Doctor Smith all the more. She listened when he spoke, or rather, _listened_ \- he couldn't help thinking of it as a more active, emphatic process. Everything she did just seemed to be _more_ than the others. She was so intent and deliberate in all of her actions. Her occasional comment was nothing like he'd expected; she was always thoughtful, though he'd heard a few of the stories she told her fellow students at the end of class, and stifled a gasp. Her mannerliness disturbed him. It was all out of keeping with the way he wanted her to act. How much simpler it would be if he could write her off as an uncouth lout like the rest of her profession. Instead, the only indication he had of any lack of couth was when she caught his eye on occasion during a lecture and he tingled with heat at the knowing expression on her face, which really had more to do with him than with her. 

He hadn't mustered the courage (or lowered himself, he told himself on difficult days, signaling for another dash of brandy) to ask her to dinner, but the opportunity was certain to present itself. He'd just have to wait until it did. He was prepared to wait as long as possible, actually. Every time he thought he might speak to her, he lost his nerve. She didn't make any sense, this woman. She wasn't at all what he'd expected. He'd imagined some sort of restless ruffian and he'd gotten a prize pupil instead, albeit one who seemed to nearly vibrate with life in a room full of dull stares. He was certain he'd get around to making her acquaintance more thoroughly one of these days. Just not today, and certainly not tomorrow, and the rest of the month looked improbable as well.

"Doctor Smith," Song said one day after his lecture, as he gathered up his notes, "I don't suppose you'd like to have dinner with me?"

The heat flared in his cheeks. "Possibly, possibly," he muttered. "I shall have to check my calendar."

"It's just that I've got an invitation to dine at the Safari Club tonight," she said. "I thought you'd be rather better company than Doctor Saxon."

Smith snapped his head up in outrage. "Doctor Saxon!" he exclaimed. "Of all the sensationalists…" He trailed off. "Not to speak ill of a colleague, of course."

"Of course," Song said. "So, will you invite me to dine with you? I'd much prefer to tell Saxon that I've a prior engagement. I can't see myself putting up with that egg for more than half an hour before I'd do something terribly drastic, which would be inconvenient considering my academic aspirations. I know myself rather well, you see." She leaned on his podium. "And I'd like to know you better." She gave him one of those smiles that made his toes curl inside his shoes.

"I'll consider it," he said shortly, looking down at his papers.

She laughed. "Oh, now, don't overwhelm me with the generosity of your offer." She gazed at him, altogether too amused in his opinion. "You don't like me very much, do you, Doctor?"

"I don't like your kind," he said. 

"Women?" she teased. "Pilots? Oh, I know, it must be people born under the sign of Leo you don't appreciate."

"Adventurers," he told her. "You're all madness and no method."

"And here I was going to show you my notes," she said, her voice rich and warm, even more soothing than hot milk, although hot milk had certainly never warmed him like this. 

"I've no interest in half-formed scrawls and mud-spattered pages," he said, aware that he was being terribly, awfully rude, but he didn't know how to speak to her when she was so easy and familiar. He had no idea what to make of this abrupt change in their relationship - she had the advantage of him, in every way, and it was vexing.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a journal bound in blue leather. She rifled the pages, staring at him with challenge in her eyes. He glimpsed solid blocks of writing, careful illustrations with annotated measurements, and a leaf or two pressed between the pages. It was enough, more than enough, to make him realize he was dealing with an organized mind, a mind that might, with careful study and learned guidance, become historical. He had seen adventurers' ideas of accounts before, but never anything that looked even a quarter as thorough as hers. He reached out.

"Ah," she said, drawing the journal back. "Not quite so fast, Doctor. I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."

"Miss Song, I haven't the faintest idea what to make of you," he said.

"An honest woman," she told him, her face carefully blank.

He choked on nothing and she laughed.

"Well," he said, when he'd recovered. "I think we should start with dinner. It seems a much less precipitous step."

"I'll trade you," she told him. "Invite me to dinner and I'll take you for a ride in my plane. Have we got a deal?"

"I think this could be the start of a very fine partnership," he said slowly. 

"I do love unearthing a dusty relic," she quipped. 

"Yes, yes, very amusing," he told her, but his heart was light. Dinner once might turn into dinner again, which might turn into a regular engagement, which might turn into an actual engagement, and of course, they'd have to spend quite a long time going through her notes, especially as she seemed to have enough for an actual thesis, or possibly several volumes of accounts. He'd have to work very closely with her, given her undoubted natural tendencies for exaggeration and unrigorous narrative. It might take years. They would become very close, naturally. She might even take him adventuring. He thought he could stand the imprecise immediacy of it all with River Song heading his expedition. Smith realized he was grinning to himself, rocking gently from heel to toe with excitement. He turned to her.

"Miss Song," he said formally, "would you like to dine with me tonight at the Safari Club?"

"Doctor Smith, I'd be delighted," she told him. "Out of curiosity, were you ever going to get around to asking me if I hadn't taken matters into my own hands?"

"Eventually," he muttered. 

She laughed. "A girl might waste away waiting for that eventually."

"We can't have that," he told her gravely. "We should get you to dinner straight away, before any wasting might occur. If you behave yourself, I might even buy you a drink."

She winked at him. "I'll be buying my own drinks tonight then. You freed me from the tyranny of Saxon - that's something I'd prefer to celebrate."

He offered her his arm and she stepped up next to him and tucked her arm through his. She felt very right next to him, if not at all proper; certainly he was tingling in a way that was far from proper. 

"Shall we?" he asked. 

"Absolutely," she told him, and he heard it echo through the years.

**Author's Note:**

> British slang of the 1930s is from [this slightly-less-than-reliable source](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091121081532AAJQR8X), and River's plane is an [Avro 621 Two-Seater](http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=579). Some of the [sites](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archaeological_sites_by_country) are real and many are not.


End file.
